


I've Got You Under My Skin

by runningsissors



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 02:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningsissors/pseuds/runningsissors
Summary: "It’s been a while since Dick has indulged in something just because he wants it. Life has taught him that indulgences normally end badly."





	I've Got You Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Covers up to E08. Title by Frank Sinatra.

 

 

.001

 

  

Dick’s not really sure why it happens; he wouldn’t exactly call himself rash or impulsive, at least not anymore, but Kory stands there, hip jutted out just so, with a coy grin, and those fucking tall boots and he just knows. 

 

Maybe it simply happens because he wants it to. It’s been a while since Dick has indulged in something just because he wants it. Life has taught him that indulgences normally end badly.

 

Kory’s a woman completely at odds with his tired, beige motel room, and honestly, he should have realized the second she breezed past him that he never really stood a chance. The way she draws him in, the way she not so much gets under his skin, as seems to delight in diving head first under it. It was going to boil over in one way or another, either in violence or sex, and as she said, he’s seen her moves and he’d rather the latter.

 

She radiates a white heat that seems to engulf him, it’s epicentre where he pushes inside her with a choked moan and her back bows, exposing the long, dark column of her neck. He grips at her hips, her back, feels the muscle fan away under his hands as she moves above him, and it’s like he can feel a raw power thrumming just below her skin. Cut her open and it’s not blood that would flow out, but flame and blinding light. 

 

It’s so much, almost too much, but he hasn't had it this good in ages and he's not about to stop it. She pins his hands down by his head and giggles softly when he finds he can’t break her hold.

 

Christ, not only does she blast fucking fire from her palms, but she’s strong, too.

 

Her hand slides to his throat, just the slightest twist and she could probably snap his neck, crush his larynx. Maybe it says some seriously fucked up things about him, that the thought of that sends a shiver that pools low in his stomach.  But she just looks at him, eyes wide and pupils blown, breath heavy on her parted lips and rolls her hips, pulls him deeper into her and his back arches off the mattress. He kisses her again now, pulls at her lip with his teeth as he sits up, takes control, but he knows now it’s only because she’s allowed him to. If she wanted, she could absolutely dominate him.

 

Afterward, she smiles, teeth tugging at the corner of her mouth, and simultaneously puts him at ease and puts him on edge. It’s all so charming: her smile, the way she pries at the thick emotional wall he’s built around himself brick by brick, that for a moment there’s a part of him that wants to let go, to let her in. But the moment passes, and Dick’s wall remains just as intact as it was before.  

 

He watches her leave, resigned, and has the feeling he’ll regret letting her slip through his fingers.

 

 

  

.002

 

  

Dick feels tired in a way he hasn’t felt in years, maybe not since he’d started his training with Bruce. 

 

He’d been to hell tonight, had seen his deepest shame and fears come to life before his eyes, had looked the devil in the eye and seen his own face staring back at him. Apparently, he’s been repressing a level of self-loathing even deeper than he was aware he was capable of.

 

He’s spent so much time laying blame on others for turning him into something, into the monster he became when he put on the suit, but it turns out it has been a part of him all along. Bruce hadn’t created it, just cultivated it and allowed it to thrive.

  

Maybe it’s not Robin that’s the problem, maybe it’s always just been Dick Grayson, and that’s not something he can just exorcize with metahuman fire.   

  

Alone in his room, back at the safe house, Dick begins mechanically undressing; head in a fog and fingers running on autopilot. Kory walks in a few moments later, but he doesn’t acknowledge her, just kicks away the last of his clothes and heads straight for the bathroom. He stays in the shower till the water run cold and scrapes the last of the blood off his knuckles.

  

When he finally steps out, Kory’s still there, huddled in the middle of the bed in just his shirt. She looks small like this, her long legs curled under her, fiddling with her big gold ring and a distant expression on her face. He’s seen her naked, but he’s never seen her this bare, this vulnerable.

  

“How are you feeling?” He asks, plopping down on the edge of the bed. Kory looks up, her expression shifting like he’s pulled her from deep thoughts. He stretches a hand out to support his weigh and shifts closer to her.

 

“Fine, I guess,” she sighs, pushing dense, red curls from her face. She reaches up to gently touch her throat, and he watches the path her fingers make.

 

“There was a moment, at… at that place. I think I’ve been tortured before.” She says it so evenly, so matter of fact like she is about everything. That certainty and levelheadedness, never wavering.

  

“What do you mean? Did you trigger a memory or something?”

 

She shakes her head, fidgeting with her ring again. “No, it was more like a feeling, like déjà vu or something.” She pauses, turning her head away, “I don’t know.”

  

“Jesus, Kory,” he breathes, a terrible thought coming to him suddenly. “Do you think that’s where your, uh, abilities came from?”

 

“I don’t know,” she repeats quickly, splaying her hands out in front of her. She rotates them slowly to examine her palms. she glances at him for a second before lowering her eyes back toward her hands. He can’t read the emotions flickering across her face, but she has a look like she wants to crawl out of her skin. He can only imagine; to not know the potential horror your own body has gone through.

  

The tracker in his arm had been bad enough. This was a whole different level.

  

The sick things they were doing at the asylum or the top-secret shit happening at Lex Corp., it wouldn’t surprise him. But the idea of that happening to someone like Kory, someone so… it just seems unthinkable. He lays a hand on her thigh, that ever-present heat emanating off her skin, and her eyes slide up to meet his. 

  

Kory lets out a trembling breath, then rolls her shoulders and sits up straighter. “I can’t think about it or I’ll drive myself crazy.” 

 

Then she pushes up on her knees and swings a leg over his hips, as her hands gently find the edges of his face. His breathing hitches slightly, his hands hesitating briefly before resting on her thighs, then sliding up and under her shirt to clutch at the small of her back. For a moment he thinks maybe he should stop her, sex as a band-aid for deep wounds has never really worked for him in the past, but it’s such a relief to feel anything other than whatever the hell this jumbled mess he currently feels is. Her breath ghosts across his cheek as she drops further into his lap and the feel of her pressed against him makes his head reel.

 

He rides this feeling like a wave; lets it pull him out like the tide, lets it pull him under, lets himself get lost in Kory in a way he’s never been with someone before. 

 

Hours later, Dick lies awake and watches the city lights cast shadows on the ceiling. Kory sleeps fitfully beside him, softly murmuring every so often in a strange language he’s never heard before. Another feature in the mystery that is Kory Anders.

   

Silently, he slips from the bed and begins gathering his things. It’s not his finest moment, sneaking around packing in the dark like a thief in the night. But, he can’t see another way about it, and old habits are hard to break. The way he unravelled at the asylum, he doesn’t know who he’ll be when he weaves the threads back together, and he can’t put that on them; especially Kory, who’s steadfast nature is something he can already feel himself becoming increasingly dependent on. She's got her own shit to sort out, he can't ask her to help him sort his out, too. 

 

Maybe the truth is he's not ready for the others to see him like that, vulnerable and with no armour to hide behind. 

  

When daybreak starts to creep through the high-rises, Dick eases himself back into bed. Kory shifts in her sleep, curling into his side as he entangles their legs. Maybe it would be easier to slip out now, he's never been good at goodbyes. He could, but he won't. They deserve better than that.

   

So instead he takes this one last quiet moment with Kory before he goes. He may not get another.

 

Later, he watches her leave, resigned, and has the feeling he’ll regret letting her slip through his fingers.


End file.
